XNA Tutorials

I have wanted to experiment with XNA ever since Microsoft released it. Well, over the last few weeks I have finally had enough semi-free time to dive into some of the code. My eventual goal is to create a racing game, so when I discovered that there is a Racing Game Starter Kit I could not help but start by hopping straight into its code. However, I quickly found out that the Starter Kit was going to be overwhelming without picking up some fundamental gaming code knowledge first. The next step was to check out the 2D and 3D Game tutorials. This turned out to be a much better starting point, and I now feel prepared to move on to some more advanced learning. Now, I just have to hope that Xboxs are still available for retail sale by the time I actually complete a real game. :-)

The elusive Orca download

Recently, I was having problems with a Windows Installer Merge Module and turned to the web for help. Upon searching, I found a suggestion to use Orca to edit the .msm file. The site simply stated to download Orca from Microsoft, so I searched MSDN for Orca and found that it is only available in the “Windows SDK Components for Windows Installer Developers”. This sounded simple enough, so I downloaded the SDK. After a brief download, I began the installation process and was horrified to find that it was going to require another 2GB+ download for a full installation. I was in a hurry, so I de-deselected the samples and documentation, which brought the install down to a more manageable size.

After the install completed, I happily navigated to Start->Microsoft Windows SDK -> Tools. Hmmm, no Orca in sight... I was just about to bite the bullet and run the full installer when I came across Aaron Stebner's blog post explaining how to get Orca, complete with a direct link for the software.

This saved me a lot of wasted time waiting on the download, just to use one small tool.

Browser shortcuts

Lately I have found myself searching for deals on used parts for our Jeep. As part of this routine, there are several sites that I navigate to, typically opening them in multiple browser tabs. As lazy as it may sound, I got tired of right-clicking items in my favorites list to open the site in a new tab. I decided it would be easier if I had a shortcut for opening all of the sites at once. I know that IE allows you to set multiple home page tabs, but this was not what I wanted because I don’t want the sites to load every time I open a browser.

I decided that a batch file might be an easy solution, and began researching IE’s command line options. While IE, does have a nice selection of options, unfortunately I could not get IE7 or IE8 to yield the results I wanted (the sites were opened in new windows instead of tabs). However, I got exactly what I wanted with Firefox (not a big issue because I routinely switch between the two browsers anyway). I just created the batch file in Notepad and saved it as a .bat file on my desktop. Here are example contents of the file:

cd\"Program Files (x86)\mozilla firefox\"
start firefox.exe http://www.cnn.com http://www.msn.com http://www.yahoo.com

After creating the batch file, it dawned on me that it would be easier to create a copy of my Firefox desktop shortcut, rename it appropriately, and then simply modify the shortcut’s target with the desired sites, as shown here:

Both methods are a great way to quickly navigate to a group of sites.

Strings....

Today I was doing some research on the performance of strings in .NET, and as I started a Google search, I noticed in the dynamic search results that there are over a million more results for String Theory than String Bikini. There are obviously too many people using the web for serious work, and not enough using it for more perverse reasons. :-) Just some humor, to start the day.